


The Video

by jelly_pies



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: BAMF Peter Parker, Electrocution, Friday is a good bro, Gen, Hurt Tony Stark, Hurt/Comfort, Kidnapped Tony Stark, Protective Peter Parker, Shooting, Tony Stark Whump, Torture, Torture video, Waterboarding, Whump, tortured tony stark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-11
Updated: 2020-07-05
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:27:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24093589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jelly_pies/pseuds/jelly_pies
Summary: Peter will do anything to help get Mr. Stark back, including watching the torture videos his kidnappers sent. But this time there's more to the video than Peter expects.
Relationships: Friday & Peter Parker, Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Comments: 100
Kudos: 251





	1. The video Peter watched

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mind the tags and stay safe! Description of electrocution in this chapter.

“Peter.” The automated voice breaks a fidgety silence like a sudden alarm. Blue computer light penetrates the otherwise pitch black room, making Peter squint. An alert pops up on the screen.

Peter’s fingers freeze over the keyboard. “FRIDAY?”

“Peter, I cannot allow you to override my security again," the AI states flatly. "The protocols have changed.”

“What?” A week ago, Peter wouldn’t have imagined he’d get to the point of arguing with Mr. Stark’s AI. But then, a lot of things have happened since then that he wouldn’t have imagined. “What do you mean, changed?”

“You can’t watch the video.”

Peter swallows. Other kids might have other reasons to hack into SI’s most advanced systems. For information, for a dare. Just his luck to be different. Just his luck to be the kid breaking in to watch some kidnappers’ torture videos.

Torture videos of Mr. Stark.

“So there _is_ another one,” he says carefully, starting to type. “But you never stopped me before.”

FRIDAY blocks Peter’s code with another alert message. “I activated mandatory barriers—”

“You put Colonel Rhodes off my scent.” Peter’s fingers fly across the keyboard now. “Why isn’t today’s video exempted by the ‘Points for Effort’ protocol, FRI? What’s different about this one?”

Peter knows there’s something different about this one.

Three days after Mr. Stark disappeared, SI had begun to receive videos. Footage. Never a demand, never any information, never anything more than Tony Stark being tortured in several different ways for five to seven minutes, some intimidation play or whatever the hell this was. One video a day.

And no one but FRIDAY knows Peter has been watching them, too.

But today there’d been even less talk around the Compound. Today Peter caught a couple of furtive glances his way. Today Ms. Potts had asked to talk with him, and Peter thought she’d finally broach the subject, but she seemed to change her mind in the middle of the conversation.

Today was off.

“Damn it, FRI,” Peter hisses when another attempt is thwarted. “And don't give me the speech about protecting me, it's not gonna work.” He swallows down the building frustration. Hey, what’s another emotion to suppress in this hell of a week. It can play in his stomach with Mr. Worry and Ms. Guilt.

“I calculate viewing this footage will be detrimental to your mental state, Peter.”

“My mental state,” Peter laughs.

The folder Peter had been working on opens, against FRIDAY’s protocols, and Peter types even faster.

“The contents of this video are along the same vein as the others, but some information is revealed that... changes the situation.”

“Then I have to know,” he snaps. “You wouldn’t understand, you know everything.”

“Not everything,” FRIDAY replies, and Peter is struck by how human her voice sounds this time. How regretful.

“I get—” Code. Firewall. Override. “I get it’s gory, and useless, and—” Open folder. Block. “Fucking sadistic, FRI. I get why they don’t want me to see it.” Override. File loading. “But I have to. I have to.”

Peter can’t explain it, not to himself, and certainly not to an AI. But the videos draw him like nothing has before.

Sure, maybe it’s the guilt. Mr. Stark kidnapped in the middle of a mission they went on together, that familiar nagging grief of failing to protect someone he cares about. And maybe it’s the hope that the footage will reveal any kind of information as to who these bastards are, where they’re holding Mr. Stark, or what they even want from him.

But also, maybe Peter accepts that it’s just better this way. No matter how much it makes him puke afterward, after watching the first video and that brutal whipping, Peter decided that knowing the daily videos’ content is better than leaving anything to his imagination at this point.

“It’s different this time,” FRIDAY warns him.

“Yeah, I got that, FRIDAY.” Peter nearly crumples the mouse in his hand when a sudden thought hits him. “Oh my god,” he whispers, “he’s not — he’s—”

“No,” FRIDAY answers quickly. “No, Tony’s not dead.”

Peter’s gut unclenches, then clenches again. “Then I'm not stopping.”

He unlocks the video, finally, a split-second before FRIDAY closes it. But in that split-second Peter catches the thumbnail. A view from above. Mr. Stark restrained on a table, metal clamps on his fingers and toes and bare chest.

Peter wants to throw up.

It takes him a few seconds to notice FRIDAY has been quiet. And he realizes he must have been, too.

He inhales deeply, still feeling his increased heartbeat after the shock of the thumbnail image. “FRI?” he tries eventually.

“Peter. If you keep going...” Something in FRIDAY’s voice is different this time. More forceful. As if she’d changed her mind in the same seconds Peter had frozen in reaction to the thumbnail. Recalculated. Yielded. “You’ll have to promise something.”

“You’re losing,” Peter croaks, pulling the video up yet again, fingers typing on autodrive. “Doesn’t count.”

FRIDAY is silent again.

And then, as if to make a point, the security alerts drop all at once. Peter slumps back in his chair.

“Watch,” FRIDAY says, something hard behind her neutral voice. “But promise something.”

And FRIDAY plays the video.

The screaming starts as soon as the video does. Mr. Stark arches off the table, only the restraints on his wrists and ankles holding him back. Screaming and yelling and whimpering, alternating with the fall and rise of electric current.

Blood starts to drip from Mr. Stark’s nose and mouth, and they pause the electrocution. But it’s only to attach another electrode in the middle of the metal hole in his chest. Peter grips the sides of his chair.

“Come on, Stark.” The voice is disguised, deep, but Peter leans in closer all the same, eyes widening. They’d never questioned him on camera before.

Mr. Stark laughs — _laughs._ He turns his head to the side, where the speaker must be, off-camera.

“You’re wasting your time,” he croaks, sweat shining on his forehead.

“I’ll be the judge of that.”

They dump a bucket of water on his chest. Mr. Stark yelps. Another, soaking his pants. Another on his head.

Peter notices how badly his mentor’s hands shake when they pour the water slowly, so slowly, over his face. He still can’t shake the image of that second or third video, the waterboarding.

Except the water is playing another role in torturing Mr. Stark this time.

“Alright, scream us a show.” There’s a humming as the electricity starts up again. Peter turns his head to the side.

Three more minutes of the same thing. Screaming that rattles in Peter’s ears. A snicker, a bark of instructions somewhere in the background. And when the men deign to give him a break, Mr. Stark hacks his lungs up coughing, and Peter’s own chest aches.

Finally they slow down. A hand reaches into the video’s frame, settling on top of their captive’s rib cage. Mr. Stark clenches his fists, hissing in pain, though no other sound comes out. Remembering the beating of yesterday’s video, and seeing the bruises on Mr. Stark’s torso where the other man laid his hand, Peter clenches his fists, too.

“Do you know now?”

“Fu — fuck…”

The hand presses down on Mr. Stark’s bruised ribs. His head jerks up in reaction, then crashes back on the table with a hard thud.

Blinking rapidly through wet eyes, Peter urges his senses to stay attuned.

“Have we jogged your memory? Stark!”

Mr. Stark winces, eyes scrunching in pain. “Can’t — can’t take what’s not there,” he manages to rasp.

“Oh, it’s there.”

The arm moves out of the frame. Peter can’t see what’s going on, but he sees Mr. Stark turn his head after the man. Whatever he sees, it makes him groan, shutting his eyes.

“What? What does he want?” Peter whispers at the screen. “Mr. Stark, what do these bastards want?”

“Peter.” Peter jumps. FRIDAY’s voice seems alien now, like the video had transported him to a whole other world. “If you want to skip ahead, the answer to that question is at 7:46.”

Peter stares blankly at the screen, where Mr. Stark still has his eyes screwed shut, inhaling deeply. Like he’s preparing himself for something.

“No,” Peter decides. “No, I’m riding this out.”

FRIDAY considers his reply quietly.

More arms in the video. Across Mr. Stark’s chest. Inserting more wires into the center.

“Oh god,” Peter groans. Of course. The arc reactor that saved the man’s life, now ripped out, leaving only a metal hole that’s all too accessible. Too easy. Too damn vulnerable. “FRI,” Peter says, because he can’t stand the silence anymore, the painful sound of Mr. Stark’s heavy breathing, the way the hands prod at his mentor’s chest like a piece of meat. He has to talk, has to say something. “FRIDAY, what made you change your mind about showing me this?”

FRIDAY is silent, until eventually the hands leave, and Mr. Stark grits his teeth again. “Because you stuck it out, Peter," the AI replies slowly. "You still do. Contrary to popular opinion, I don’t know everything. I’m always recalculating.” On-screen, the familiar hum of electricity starts up. “Maybe it will be better for you to see this, after all. But promise something.”

It starts again.

Mr. Stark opens his mouth in a shout, but no sound comes out. As Peter anticipated, it looks like a whole other level of pain this time. Mr. Stark’s back arches off the table like before. But this time, he’s shaking head to foot.

It takes five seconds flat for Mr. Stark to start wailing. Peter bites his lip.

It’s never easy to see someone you look up to, crying.

“Fu—UCK! NO! I don’t know!”

Even harder to see someone who's always been strong for you, in this much agony.

“Please — FUCK! Please I don’t know I don’t — please — NO!”

And fucking harder to see someone you love, begging.

“Yes you do! You know you fucking do!” The same disguised deep voice, now shouting.

"I don't know!" Mr. Stark’s screams, his words, his sobs all mix together. “I don’t!”

“Say it, Stark!”

“Plea—aaauuUUGHH!”  
  
“Say it!”

“I don’t know who Spider-Man is!”

Peter's stomach drops.

The video screen falls away. His vision spins in slow-motion. Upside-down.

Mr. Stark’s shouts continue on the computer. His screams still ring out in the silence. But Peter doesn’t hear it anymore. He doesn’t hear anything.

Mr. Stark’s words just keep replaying and replaying in his mind. So this is what’s different. So this is what they want.

Peter thought nothing could be harder than watching Mr. Stark's torture?

He was wrong. Those six simple words took the prize.

“Peter.” FRIDAY’s voice filters through the fog. “Peter?”

He blinks. The surroundings, the room rushes back at him. The video had ended.

“FRIDAY… was that…”

“Yes,” she answers briefly, but not unkindly. “That was it.”

“God. Oh my god.”

Peter lets his head fall in his hands. He doesn’t know how long he sits there, crouching on the chair, in total silence in a dark room. Stinging pain in his chest. More than guilt. More than anger.

When he looks back up, FRIDAY has mercifully returned the computer to a blank screensaver.

“Why?” Peter asks. He isn’t sure what he means by that.

But FRIDAY seems to. She brings up some new files on the screen. A list. Peter squints, wiping his wet eyes. A list of names.

“This is the same list I provided to Colonel Rhodes and SHIELD," FRIDAY says quietly.

Peter scans through the names, suddenly realizing their significance. A serial killer he’d caught two months ago. The terrorist organization from his last Avengers mission. The powerful brother of a man who’d been killed fighting him.

Enemies of Spider-Man. Him. Peter Parker’s. Not Iron Man’s, not Tony Stark’s, not anything to do with the man getting torn a million ways to protect his secret. Amazing the torrent of emotions one simple revelation could bring.

Mr. Stark always worried his enemies would get to Peter because of him. But Peter never even considered the pain of being on the other side of that bargain.

“I suspect you'll be able to help SHIELD narrow this down,” FRIDAY tells Peter, as he continues scrolling through the list. "I've been helping you sneak around with the videos, Peter. I know now how much you care for Tony. And if you're this determined, we might as well take it all the way."

Peter still feels his heart hammering in his chest. Mr. Stark’s screams still ringing in his ears.

But there’s something else now, too. A feeling like he’s finally been let go. Like the adrenaline and the anxiety have made way for something else.

Like all the past videos have been piling on a huge bonfire. And this one finally lit the match.

“And the promise?” he asks, voice firm with newfound determination. But Peter thinks he already knows the answer.

In the short pause, Peter can almost imagine FRIDAY lifting her chin, leveling her eyes at him. Giving the same kind of look Mr. Stark would give him before a mission.

He has never before heard more emotion in the AI’s voice. “Give them hell, Peter.”


	2. The videos FRIDAY watched

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To be honest, when I started this I really only planned for the first chapter, but some folks asked in the comments for a continuation and it got some ideas going. And you know what, absolutely why not? This story deserves a happy end. Thanks for the support, hope you enjoy!! (Also, heed the tags ❤️)

_One._

Head in the water. Swirling. Cold.

Tony struggles weakly, almost perfunctorily. There’s never much point struggling.

_Five. Six._

Above the water, the yelling starts. He can’t even hear it clearly with the water in his ears.

_Twelve. Thirteen._

Through the noise and his own count of the passing seconds, Tony catches a single word: Spider-Man. Water seeps into his nose. His head starts to burn. It hurts where they thrust his chest’s arc reactor casing against the metal tub.

Who’s he kidding. It hurts fucking everywhere.

_Twenty. Twenty-one._

Lungs cry for air. Chest hurts. Cries for air.

_Twenty-nine. Thirty._

Tony can feel his own shaking go down, the fight bleeding from his body along with the air from his lungs. Not good. Never good, never good to stop fighting, because—

They zap his back through his worn shirt. Taser, a short burst, but enough to send a burning wave over the still-open whip scars. Up through his chest. Into the water.

Tony screams into the cold, into the metal tub, into the dark.

_Thirty… five? Six?_

Tony thought they’d pull him up by now. They did around this time, the first time they waterboarded him days ago.

They don’t.

_Forty? Fifty? Fuck._

Water. Flood. Coming in when he’d screamed. Coming in when he convulses in a delayed reaction to the electricity, gasping for air.

No air. Water.

_One thousand. One thousand and one._

Tony has died one thousand times. Maybe this will be one thousand and one.

_Infinity._

_Infinity times two._

Air.

They pull him up, they drop him down. Floor hurts. Broken ribs hurt. He doesn’t care.

Air, air, air, air, _air._

Tony doesn’t know how long he lies there, writhing on the floor, handcuffed arms trapped under him. He doesn’t know. He doesn’t count. He allows his mind to reset.

Gasping. Coughing. Almost as familiar a noise now as his tormentors shouting over him. Spider-Man. Spider-Man. Peter.

 _No._ The force behind his own thought jerks Tony. _No. No Peter._ He doesn’t know Spider-Man’s name. He _doesn’t_ know.

Another jerk. Okay, maybe that one is just the pain. The electricity. The drowned lungs. The fucking hole in his chest.

Gasping. Pain.

Spider-Man. Name. He doesn’t know.

Sometimes the line blurs between what Tony thinks, and what he finds himself saying out loud. But maybe he says that one out loud, because his ribs receive another jab from the taser.

Spider-Man. He doesn’t know.

Pain. Gasp. Cough.

He doesn’t know. He does. Not. Know.

Electricity. Shaking. Screaming. Is that his own voice? Screaming.

He shouldn’t be screaming this much. Not, “he can’t be.” He shouldn’t be. Because it’s what they want.

Because this whole thing is bait. Tony knows that, had known that since day one. The video camera. The whole fucking spectacle. The web-slinging hero known for his big heart and bigger self-sacrificial issues.

And Tony Stark was bait.

But he can’t help it. Fuck all, Spider-Man forgive him, he can’t help it. Screaming. Electricity.

The fucking taser on his broken ribs, on his groin, jammed into his mouth. Screaming.

Spider-Man. Name. Peter. The kid. That thought pierces through everything else, solid as iron.

His kid.

His kid whom he’d be willing to bleed for. Die protecting. All Tony is doing now is proving what he has long known to be true.

Spider-Man. Name. No. _No._

A sharp kick to his lower back unravels Tony from the fetal position he'd curled up in. More feet, more hands, pinning him on his back. They pull his shirt up. Pour water into the hole in his chest, and point the taser there. Tony screams. Screams his throat out, screams profanities. Screams anything and everything but Peter’s name.

God help him, he would _not_ say Peter’s name.

They pull him up. Dripping, water. Blood.

They drag him forward. _No._ Metal tub. _No._

A painful splash, and his head hits water. Swirling. Cold.

Tony struggles weakly, almost perfunctorily. There’s never much point struggling.

_One._

-

Peter nods at Karen’s heads-up display. Thermal scanners show the crowd in the room, all hovering over one point. One person. Peter swallows. He’s got a promise to keep.

_We’re coming, Mr. Stark. Hold on, Tony._

When Colonel Rhodes starts the count, Peter whispers, “Two.”

-

Rhodes mounts his suit’s shoulder gun. Inside his HUD, FRIDAY locks the targets.

She gives the signal. “Three.”

* * *

There is 0.12 of a second before War Machine’s missiles hit their targets. Before the SHIELD team behind the doors storm in. Before Peter swings down from the rafters, agile and swift and furious. But FRIDAY can do many things in microseconds. And for these ones, FRIDAY watches Peter.

The AI doesn’t often experience unprompted memory callbacks, what humans have described as their lives flashing before their eyes. It’s a strange thing to have been given life by Tony Stark. FRIDAY thinks he may have implanted much more than just intelligence.

Because the past week, searching for her creator, working with Peter, FRIDAY has never… _felt_ more. And she feels it now, watching Peter. She feels it now, in the microseconds of deafening anticipation before the walls start crashing in. And she feels it now, in something so mundane, something so human as her memories flashing before her eyes.

Different memories. Different videos.

-

“Pause it. There.” Tony points at a spot on the holographic display.

“Thirty-five thousand pound bus.” FRIDAY flashes the information just below the red-clad figure on the screen, bare-handedly stopping said vehicle. “Terminal velocity 94.6 mph…”

“So, clearly enhanced. Heroic reflexes. And clearly… impulsively reckless.”

“Two out of three, Boss, if you’re describing your own alter-ego.”

“Wrap up the snark.” Tony smirks. “And wrap this one up, too, FRI. Private server, recruitment folder."

"Filename?"

"Let's say, Spider-Boy.”

-

Peter’s grunts come clear even through the grainy surveillance video. “Come on, Peter. Come on, Spider-Man.” The rubble rises.

“Jesus.” Tony has one hand over his mouth, slumped on a chair in the dark room.

The video ends after a few more seconds. “I’ve wiped the footage that caught his face, Boss. This and one other camera, a building across the street,” FRIDAY reports.

Tony is still staring at the now-frozen holographic screen. “FRI,” he declares after a pause. “I’m modifying the Iron Spider suit’s protocols. This can’t happen again. This won’t happen again.”

“You have already integrated emergency alerts to all in-progress Spider designs.”

“No, not just that. I won’t always be there.” Tony calls up a holographic keyboard, and starts typing. “I’m coding the kid an exception on your systems.”

“Yes, Boss,” the AI replies, processing the lines being added to her programming. “Shall I put this with Ms. Potts’ and Colonel Rhodes’ judgment call overrides?”

“Same vein.”

“Done. And what’s your tacky nickname for this one?”

Tony smiles, his first one since starting to watch the video of the falling building. Peter’s determined face stares back at him from the screen. “Call it ‘Points for Effort.’”

-

“Look, please, I just want to help.”

It’s the first video they’ve received, the first sign of life since Tony was taken three days ago. Peter has both steel and tears behind his voice as he argues with the AI.

“Alright, Peter.” If FRIDAY had human reflexes, she would sigh. Yet not frustratingly. “Alright. Since you’re pursuing this… I should tell you Tony provided some exceptions for you in my protocols, for so long as it doesn’t compromise your own well-being.”

Peter’s eyes go wide, like a kid on the other side of a tug-of-war rope when his opponent suddenly lets go. “What do you mean?”

FRIDAY unlocks the video file in reply. "He called it 'Points for Effort.'"

-

That was the first of many times. Many, many videos.

-

“You’ll have to promise something. Give them hell, Peter.”

-

“This man. His resources, how they took Mr. Stark, and—and the method, it all fits.”

“You’re sure?”

“FRIDAY.”

“You’re sure.”

-

“You give the signal.”

If FRIDAY had eyes, she would look straight into Peter’s. “And you give them hell.”

-

The SHIELD agents fall into position. So do War Machine and Spider-Man. The kidnappers are distracted. If kicking at the limp figure on the ground counts as distracted. They drag him, dunk his head back in a tub of water.

“One.” Rhodes starts the count, voice gritty with furious restraint.

“Two,” Peter replies from his perch on the roof.

FRIDAY coordinates the final go signal. “Three.”

* * *

Tony doesn’t remember the moment he was aware it had started.

He remembers the water. His whole world, water. He remembers the dizziness, wanting to vomit and bringing nothing up. Remembers the pain, flaring and dull at the same time. Ever-present. Water — pain —

Fire.

Fire and explosions. Screaming. But not him. Screaming out there, above the water.

Tony remembers the long, long seconds, minutes, struggling under the water while chaos erupts above. He remembers the hand that was keeping his head under the surface, suddenly gripping his hair with a sudden fierceness. Yelling. Cold metal against his back. A gun.

They drag him up.

_Air air air —_

“I’ll kill him!”

Gasping. Coughing.

“Swear to god I’ll fucking kill him!”

Tony’s knees hit the floor. Cold. Metal. Gun against his head.

Pain.

“Yo, I don’t know what else you want, man, I thought you were after me!”

The new voice breaks through Tony’s dizziness. Through his pain.

_Peter._

More yelling. Tony remembers flinching, eyes shutting when the gun presses harder against his temple.

Yelling.

Dizzy. Pain. Gasping.

Yelling.

Cold. Metal.

Gun.

Gun gun gun gun —

  
  
  


_Bang._

  
  
  


He remembers screaming the kid's name. Peter. _Peter._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Third chapter coming up soon!


	3. The video Tony watched

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How did a supposedly 2k one shot turn into 7k with 3 chapters?? I don’t know either, don’t ask me 😅 But seriously though, thank you 3000 to everyone who left such kind feedback. I hope you like the ending!
> 
> (Warning for shooting in this chapter.)

It’s a cold night when Tony sneaks across the Compound medbay. Cold as the metal floor under his bare feet. Cold as his thoughts. Groaning quietly, Tony limps his way to his old room, and summons his AI from there.

“Boss.” FRIDAY’s automated voice breaks the silence like a sudden alarm. Blue computer light penetrates the otherwise pitch black room, the glare making Tony squint through still-bruised eyes. “You really shouldn’t be coming to me after nightmares.”

Tony huffs, reaching for a chair to stumble on. “No tattling, FRI. Nothing, override.”

“Under Dr. Cho’s orders you’re not—”

_“My_ orders,” Tony jabs back, summoning a holographic keyboard, “say ‘can it.’”

FRIDAY falls silent. Tony types with one hand, with his left arm still in a sling, but he makes quick work of her code. He opens the folder FRIDAY guessed he would open.

She closes it back.

“For your own well-being I don’t recommend—”

“I recommend. Open it.”

Left without a choice against a direct order, FRIDAY plays the video.

It starts with the waterboarding. Gray floor, gray tub, the last video that had never been sent. But if Tony had had FRIDAY swipe it from SHIELD’s servers a couple of days ago, that was his business.

Tony fast-forwards through the first few minutes of the footage; he sees those scenes enough in his nightmares, he doesn’t need to see them again. “There,” he instructs when the first of War Machine’s rockets hits its mark, and FRIDAY returns the video to normal speed. The tripod had been knocked over on its side in the chaos, but the camera miraculously survived, providing a crooked but clear record of that fateful night.

Tony watches quietly, carefully, slouched in his chair and a hand over his mouth, the way he remembers watching that video of Peter under the building from so long ago. Except this time Spider-Man is swinging, shooting webs, fighting in full action, the camera capturing his swift movements from its wide-shot vantage point on the floor. Tony doesn’t remember this part.

How could he, with the state he had been in at the time. Oh, look — the camera is kicked over a little to the right — who’s that poor bastard on center screen with his head still shoved in a tub. But Tony doesn’t focus on his own pitiful figure in the video. He focuses on Peter.

And Peter looks _livid._ Yes, Tony watches the kid from time to time on the news… and maybe from a couple of SHIELD satellites. Yes, he knows how Peter fights. And Peter has never fought like this.

He’s still quick. He’s still resourceful, with webs traps on the floor tripping up more than a few goons, and taser webs activated at just the right second to save some SHIELD agent’s ass off to the side of the video screen. But gone are the wisecracks, the signature banter Tony remembers the kid for. Tony once watched Spider-Man hold off enhanced reptile villains without breaking a steady stream of one-liners, and held the kid’s composure in admiration from that day on.

But _this_ Spider-Man, silent and furious? This Spider-Man is to be feared.

Tony sees the kid narrowly dodge a bat swinging at his head — fuck, could those kidnappers fight feral. The Spider mask’s eyes contract, their reflection showing dark spots on the bat that Tony knows all too well to be dried blood. Peter wrenches the bat off the man’s hands with a burst of strength, turns and launches the weapon off-screen to kingdom come. More men come at him — twenty-six all in all in that room for that fight, Tony knows from the official report. All heavily armed. Peter must rip through more than half of them in the next ten seconds.

Swinging. Webbing. Kicking. Tony can’t help but admit it feels awfully cathartic. The things Tony imagined he’d do to those sadistic villains all the days they had him — and now here’s Peter Parker, furious and forceful, doing it for him. Doing it, for him.

“I’ll kill him!” A new voice erupts from the speakers. Tony sits up. He remembers this part. “Don’t try — swear to god I’ll fucking kill him!” Tony had called that guy Grumpy in his mind. Rough voice, cheap rings that he never took off during beating sessions. The same heavy hand shoves video-Tony to his knees now, a gun repositioned from behind Tony’s back to against the side of his head. Peter has a larger guy in a headlock when he hears the yelling; he throws the man upward like a child might throw a rag doll, and Tony assumes Rhodey must have crashed the guy up in the air off-screen, because he’s never seen again.

“Yo!” Peter’s change in demeanor is automatic, like a switch turned off. He raises both hands and slowly advances on Tony and Grumpy. “I don’t know what else you want, man, I thought you were after me!”

“Stay — the fuck — back!”

“Kid, don’t!” Tony’s garbled voice cries.

Peter steps closer. “Spider-Man, I’m here, right? You were never after Mr. Stark.”

“I can take you both,” Grumpy hisses.

_Click._ A couple of SHIELD guns aim at him, and the smirk falls off Grumpy’s face.

The man’s eyes sweep the room frantically. Tony sees the rest of his cohorts either on the ground, or restrained by SHIELD and War Machine on the edges of the video screen. Grumpy’s the only one left.

And that makes him desperate.

The man’s next words are barely caught on tape. “I wanted Spider-Man.” Low. Dangerous. “I’m getting Spider-Man.”

Tony knows FRIDAY didn’t set the video to slow-motion, but it still feels that way watching what happens next.

Grumpy raises the gun from Tony’s head. The instant he does, War Machine rushes forward.

He turns the gun from Tony to Peter. The instant it is, Tony screams.

He remembers this part. The feeling of a knife in his chest, carving pain deeper than anything Grumpy and his pals ever inflicted in torture. Cold. Metal. Panic.

_“Peter!”_

_Bang._

The body hits the floor, crumpling, ungraceful. Yelling in pain. Two or three agents surround him in seconds. They kick the web-covered gun away from the man’s hand, restrain his bleeding leg. Pull the handcuffs on him.

And another figure swerves around the crowd, rushing straight to Tony.

It's Peter. Unharmed.

But Tony’s still screaming. “Peter! _Peter!”_ Rhodey has him in a firm hold, pulled a few feet away from where Grumpy fell. Kneeling on the ground with him, Rhodey grips Tony’s shoulders, talking in a soothing tone. But Tony’s still screaming. “Peter!”

“Mr. Stark!” Peter drops to his knees in front of them. He reaches behind Tony, snaps the handcuffs behind his back. The second he has his arms free, Tony throws them around Peter’s shoulders.

“Peter. Kid.”

“Yeah, yeah I’m — I’m alright sir, I’m good.”

“Peter—”

“He didn’t hit me, didn’t hit me, I’m good. Are you — you’re okay?”

Tony-in-the-video grips the kid tightly. His hands probe Peter’s back for blood that isn’t there, eyes still wide, still frantic.

And Tony-watching-the-video sinks deeper in his seat. He barely remembers this part.

The last few seconds of the footage only just register, like white noise. Rhodey says something about a panic attack. Peter kneels there, and just lets Tony hold him.

A SHIELD agent picks the camera up, and the video ends.

“Boss?” FRIDAY’s voice pulls Tony back to reality. “Heart rate spiking to dangerous levels.”

_Damn right it is._ Tony feels it keenly against the still-aching arc reactor casing in his chest.

"I can call Peter right now," the AI offers. "Middle of the night, but he'll answer if it's you."

"No." Tony’s heart is still pounding, still hurting. “No, don’t bother.”

He swipes a hand over his eyes. God, his chest hadn’t hurt this much since the first operation. And yet. He needed to see this.

It’s not as if anybody kept the truth from him. Pepper, Rhodey, even Peter had sat by his bedside these past days, filling him in. But this was something he needed to see for himself. Even if only to quench his nightmares, even if only to see Peter ripping through those assholes like ants and come out with barely a scratch. Still—

“Alright, FRI. Delete.”

—now he’d seen all there was to see. Now’s the time to move forward. Because that’s how Tony’s learned to deal with the shit that happens in his life. He moves forward.

“Done, Boss,” FRIDAY replies a little too quickly, like she’d just been waiting for his word to shut the screen down. “Anything else for tonight?”

The image of Peter on the business end of the gun flashes in Tony’s mind. “Yeah, one thing, Miss F.”

“If this concerns more sneaking around SHIELD’s videos, you should know I’m averse to the idea at the moment.” FRIDAY’s voice carries a warning.

“No, not that.” Not anymore. Still, Tony smiles at his AI’s snark. “Actually, it’s about Peter.”

* * *

There’s a million thoughts running through Peter’s mind as he makes his way to the Compound lab. Not least of which is all the schoolwork he has to catch up on when he gets back to Midtown. Ms. Potts had been adamant that Peter not disrupt his normal life for what happened, but the second or third day after the first video the kidnappers sent, it became clear to everyone none of them would have any normal life until Mr. Stark came back. And now that he was back, normal life was catching up real fast with Peter.

Still, it can wait. As he draws closer to Mr. Stark’s personal lab-slash-workshop, Peter’s mind is bent on little more than the device currently sitting in his pocket.

Peter halts at the door. His senses alert him to a pulsating sensation inside. One set of footsteps. And he hears… music?

At his hand scan, the doors open to reveal Mr. Stark surrounded by tables pushed together into a U shape, littered with metal scraps and holographic schematics. He’s standing as he types something into a keyboard. DUM-E, U, and Butterfingers move pieces of what looks like a disassembled suit behind his back.

“Kid?” Mr. Stark puts a hand up to mute the AC/DC song as soon as he sees Peter. “Sorry, things are kinda hectic in here.”

Peter takes that as permission to enter, getting his first good look at his mentor outside a medical setting as he walks closer. Braces on Mr. Stark’s legs, similar to some of the initial designs for Mr. Rhodes, clue Peter in on why the man might prefer to work standing. The strap on his left arm’s sling hides the bulge of the new arc reactor on his chest, but Peter can just barely make out the outline. More conspicuous, though, is the mottle of bruises on Mr. Stark’s face, and, Peter guesses, a lot of other places just covered by his leather jacket.

Still, the familiar queasy feeling at the sight of Mr. Stark’s injuries are brushed aside by Peter’s surprise at seeing him up and active. “Uh... hi, it's good to see you up,” Peter greets. “But — no offense —shouldn’t you be at the medbay, though, sir?”

“Shouldn’t you be at school?”

“Touché.” The corner of Peter’s mouth turns up in a smile. "I've already missed almost two weeks, I can be on 'special internship training' a few more days."

“Anything to keep hanging out at the Avengers Compound, right?”

“Sure, anything for that,” Peter says, though he knows both of them know that’s not his real motive. Peter hasn’t been able to spend much time with Mr. Stark since all the medbay rush, and the grueling recovery. He’ll take what he can get.

“C’mere. I wanna show you something.” Mr. Stark waves him over.

_Me too,_ Peter thinks, fingering the device in his pocket, the one he had come here to work on in the first place. But that can wait. “Okay. But seriously — working again, so soon after, is that healthy?”

“I can’t stop moving for too long. Too many… thoughts.” Tony moves over to make way for Peter behind the worktables. “So anyway, I’ve been dealing with this, and I need your opinion.”

“Why would you need my opinion?”

“‘Cause it’s for you.”

Peter looks up in surprise, and Mr. Stark brings up a hologram of a suit design. Not the Iron Spider Mr. Stark had shown him before, as Peter might have suspected from the metal scraps littering the tables. Just the regular Spider-Man suit. But then Peter notices the highlighted areas on the suit, with modified layers.

“Is this—?”

“Bulletproof,” Mr. Stark supplies shortly. “I mean, better, bulletproof. Directly and at close range. Of course the Iron Spider already has that feature, but if you wanna stick with the classic look — you’ve already got your brand, you know? I'm making improvements.”

Peter examines the materials scattered around Mr. Stark’s tables more closely. “That’s my webbing.”

“As a base for the stronger textile, yes, so I need your expert input on that. But I’m planning to insert some more of my specialized titanium alloy for good measure.” Mr. Stark sticks a thumb toward the bots still moving metal scraps around in the back. “What do you think?”

“I think…” Peter plucks a canister of webbing off the table, twiddles with it. The memory of the gunshot, the last of Mr. Stark’s abductors he’d been able to deal with, rattles in his brain. “I think someone's been reviewing certain video footage.”

Mr. Stark crosses his one good arm over his chest. “Pot calls the kettle black?”

“Hey, come one, at least I came clean on that,” Peter says in a mock-offended tone, raising both hands. As it had turned out, Mr. Stark hadn’t even made a big deal over the whole thing. Peter had been able to grab a quiet moment with him in the medbay, sometime between Mr. Stark’s chest operations. He remembers the nervousness as he admitted how they'd been able to rescue him; Peter recounted his adventures with FRIDAY, sneaking around to watch the torture videos. And Mr. Stark, although pumped full of pain medication, had simply responded, _"Good. I knew you could do anything you put your mind to."_ Peter remembers the surge of affection he'd felt for his mentor then. But that was another matter.

“That — the suit sounds great, thank you. But I actually came down here for something else,” Peter continues. Mr. Stark raises an eyebrow. For a moment Peter debates whether laying everything out, now, is a good idea. But the doubt passes. After a long couple of weeks with the very real possibility of Mr. Stark’s death looming over his head, Peter finds himself more open towards his hero this time. “Okay,” Peter sighs. And he takes out the device from his pocket. “Look, I — I need to run something by you, too.”

Mr. Stark takes it from Peter, and turns the coin-sized gadget over in his hand. “Your tracker?”

“And yours as well. Same model as any of the suits, right? I did some research with FRIDAY, sometime during… this whole thing. And — and I think I can make a few tweaks. Make it better. That’s what I’ve been working on, actually. On and off... from since before you got back.”

Mr. Stark tilts his head to one side. “That’s a very ambitious, very… noble undertaking.”

“Yeah, and — and you’re the expert, but I just thought with FRIDAY, we could improve a few things. If yours hadn’t been disabled by that electric shock, back on our last mission, I mean, you wouldn’t have been…” Peter lets his words trail off. _“Wouldn’t have been taken in the first place”_ doesn’t seem to convey the heaviness in his gut. _"Wouldn't have been tortured"_ is too painful to say. So he leaves the sentence hanging.

When Mr. Stark remains silent, an indecipherable expression on his face, Peter continues softly, “I just wanna… I wanted to prevent anything like this from happening ever again, sir. I want to do better by you.”

“Look at you,” Mr. Stark says softly, “all protective.”

“Well... you’ve done a lot to protect me lately, Mr. Stark. And now you're upgrading my suit? This is the least I can do to make up for it.”

Mr. Stark exhales slowly. He reaches up to the side of his head as if to adjust his sunglasses, but finding his face sunglasses-less, flexes his hand instead. “You… you have nothing to make up for, Peter,” he almost whispers. Peter thinks he can decipher the look on Mr. Stark’s eyes now, and it startles him.

Gratefulness? From the man tortured keeping Peter’s secret? God, how low had the bar been set for this guy, that he tears up at someone he’s saved trying to do something nice in return? That he drags his recuperating body down here to work on something to protect _Peter?_

“I—I haven’t even, I mean…” Peter stammers, gathering his thoughts. The way Mr. Stark is looking at him throws him off more than any of the videos ever did. In a completely different way, of course. A completely new way. “All the operations, you were in the medbay a lot, sir. I never found the right time to properly, fully, say sorry. And to thank you. You — what they did, and what you did — y-you put, I mean, your life for me, and—”

“Pete.” Mr. Stark lays his good hand on the younger man's shoulder, cutting off his stuttering. “Protecting you, that was just — just what anybody would do for the so— the kid. The people that — that they care about in life. But you —” Mr. Stark breaks off and clears his throat. “The rescue video I watched, you’re the one who went above and beyond, Spidey. I don’t know what I would have done if that gun… if it had... well. What I mean to say, Peter, is honestly, I should be the one thanking you.”

Peter glances at the bandages peeking above the collar of Mr. Stark’s shirt. “Agree to disagree,” he says softly.

“Then we’ll have to disagree."

Peter shrugs. "So what now?"

“How about this." The corner of Mr. Stark's mouth turns up. "One, we work on both these projects together.”

“Oh." As he mulls it over, the prospect of spending time with Mr. Stark again, after the hell of the past couple of weeks, fills Peter with warmth. "Okay, good plan."

“Two. Delete those damned videos from our brains’ hard drives. Nightmare fodder, all of them.”

“Agreed.”

“Three, in case number two doesn’t completely work, I hired a therapist. SHIELD-sanctioned, of course. But not just for me. She’s here for you, too, Pete. If you want.”

“Wow.” Peter blinks. “That sounds… healthy.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re really willing to talk through all this more? If I need it?”

“Of course.” Mr. Stark shrugs. “I want to do better by you.”

Peter isn’t sure, afterward, what came over him then. Maybe it’s just the thrill of his longest conversation with Mr. Stark since all of this started. Maybe it’s the stress of long nights spent by Mr. Stark's hospital bed, and the release of finally airing all of this out. Maybe it’s the way Peter knows, deep down, he can’t pretend none of this ever happened.

He can’t. As much as Peter wishes he could scrub those images of Mr. Stark screaming on a table from his mind, Peter knows they both have to live with that now. Live with their mentor-mentee relationship, which had slowly been growing into something more, now suddenly torn and prodded and pulled apart. And still, somehow, holding together despite it all.

Peter knows he and Mr. Stark have both been hurt, deeply, these past weeks, and he can’t pretend it never happened. But he can move forward. Because that’s how Peter’s learned to deal with the shit that happens in his life. He moves forward.

In any case, Peter steps forward, and for the first time since that embarrassing attempt in the back seat of a car, reaches his arms carefully around Mr. Stark, and hugs him.

“Huh.” Mr. Stark sounds like he’s puzzling over an equation instead of receiving a gesture of affection. “This is…”

“A hug," Peter deadpans. "Weird? Awkward?”

“Nice,” Mr. Stark says instead. Although Peter knows his mentor can’t see his face, he can’t help but smile.

Mr. Stark doesn’t break the embrace until Peter does.

* * *

Peter clears his throat. "Mic check?"

"Hello, Peter," FRIDAY replies, and the HUD of his Spider-Man mask suddenly powers up.

"Whoa!" Peter holds his hands out in front of his face, testing his mask's new visual display features. Holograms and details follow his arms wherever he waves them. "You weren't kidding!"

"'Course I wasn't." Mr. Stark grins from the other side of the lab table, spreading both now-completely-healed arms in a ta-da gesture. "Little extra I had our friend FRIDAY take care of, besides the bulletproofing. You still have Karen, of course, primary suit lady. But now you'll have FRI's backup resources up there, too. Because you two work well together."

"Talk about upgrades!"

"Call it a thank you," Mr. Stark replies softly.

“Drat, and I only got you a t-shirt.”

“Oh, don’t be fooled, Peter.” FRIDAY’s voice carries a sly grin. “He reorganized his closet figuring out which blazers go with that hot red ‘Spider-Man saved my life’ shirt.”

“Hey, whose AI are you, anyway?” Mr. Stark complains.

Extra database access, improved impact protection on the Spidey suit, and upgraded trackers for all Stark-designed suits — honestly, not bad for the first three months of recovery. Peter doesn’t get to test the new features in action until a week after they’re finalized, but when he does, it’s well worth the wait. Iron Man flies beside Spider-Man as they zip through Queens, en route to their first official Avengers mission since the kidnapping. Peter has never missed going on missions more.

“Still not too late to back out, old man,” Peter quips as he sticks the landing on their target rooftop.

“No thanks,” Mr. Stark laughs behind the mask. “The criminal underworld knows we’re a close team now? They better realize they’re not the only ones who take advantage of that.”

“That's a sweet way to put it.” Peter smiles as he swiftly scans through the blueprints FRIDAY just downloaded to his HUD. “We ready, FRI?”

“We are,” she replies, before starting the process to transfer the controls back to Karen. Peter swears he can hear a hint of pride in the AI’s voice. “Alright, you two. Give them hell.”


End file.
